Racks for housing equipment, such as servers, switches, routers, and the like are known in the art. With these types of racks, various components are rigidly secured by fasteners. The equipment will typically have a flange on each side which receives a threaded bolt which is used to secure the flange to a reciprocating threaded receptacle on the rack. The pieces of equipment are stacked one on top of the other. For example, on a typical eight foot rack, a telephone switch may be located in the bottom-most part of the rack. A server might be secured immediately above the switch. Then a router might be attached above the server, and so on. The height of such racks may vary dramatically depending on need. Oftentimes, the individual or organization using the equipment racks will assign a particular identifier for each device's position within each rack. For example, the switch at the bottom of the rack may be identified as U1. Immediately above that, the server may be identified as U2. A router stacked above the server may be identified as U3. Thus, the identifier for each rack will increase incrementally until the uppermost piece of equipment on the rack is identified. With the next rack, a new set of identifiers will be used (e.g., starting over again with U1).
Organizational problems oftentimes arise when numerous racks are in use by the same organization. Depending on the organizations communications requirements, it may manage hundreds—even thousands of racks full of servers, routers and switches. These racks may be located in one common place, or scattered in numerous locations geographically. Regardless of location, system administrators oftentimes have problems locating its racks. In fact, it is not all uncommon for an administrator to waste hours, even days searching for a rack that needs some kind of service.
Conventional racks also provide no support when it comes to the system administrator's problem of monitoring the battalions of servers, routers, switches and other equipment within vast arrays of racks. Most individual devices have visual indicators located thereon. These indicators visually inform the user of the failure of some internal mechanism. For example, when a fan goes out, an LED on the exterior of the server (or other device) will become illuminated so that the administrator can visually identify the problem and make the necessary repairs. Like indicators may be used for other sorts of problems, such as failed servers, hard drives, or to indicate that the device has unexpectedly “restarted” for some reason.
When an organization has vast quantities of racks in use at once, the identification of malfunctions by visual inspections of indicators is an overwhelming proposition. Because of this, monitoring systems have been used which enable the detection of equipment malfunctions automatically. It is also hoped when using such systems that the system administrator will be able to locate the particular piece of equipment within the facility including the vast quantities of racks.
One such prior method involves the creation of the client server relationship with an outside firm. With this client/server arrangement, software is installed on each independent piece of equipment within each rack. This special software monitors the functionality of the piece of equipment's hardware. This special software then contacts the server (an external organization) whenever there is a malfunction upon occurrence. The notification may also occur according to a predetermined schedule. The information regarding the malfunction is transferred by way of the already existing computer equipment. Once the server/external organization receives the information, that information, or whatever subset of that information the administration has preindicated a desire to have knowledge of, is transferred to the administrator. This is done so that the administrator may take any actions necessary based on the information.
A second prior art system is also software based. It, like the first, involves the installation of software in each particular piece of equipment. Unlike the first, however, this arrangement is Web-based. When some malfunction occurs, the software causes the system administrator to be contacted over the web directly. Usually via email.
Both of these prior art systems, however, have significant disadvantages. This is because they are dependent on the software within each piece of equipment for quick response to malfunctions. This requires that the device be reprogrammed every time that it is moved. If it is not appropriately reprogrammed, it will be difficult to locate it, especially when numerous racks are in place within a particular facility. Further, the operation of the software within the rack, obviously, is dependent on the functionality of the device. For example, without power, the monitoring systems within the device will obviously fail.
Another disadvantage in these systems regards asset tracking. Presently, the methods used to track rack mounted assets are separate from the monitoring systems. Thus, the conventional methods of accounting for these assets are very time consuming and costly.